


Only You

by SpideychelleCarwheelerTrash



Series: Segmented (A Collection of Spideychelle One-shots) [10]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Spideychelle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 10:53:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16721964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpideychelleCarwheelerTrash/pseuds/SpideychelleCarwheelerTrash
Summary: “Once upon a time we had it all,Somewhere down the line we went and lost it;One brick at a time we watched it fall...I’m broken here tonight, and darling, no one else can fix me--Only you.”





	Only You

The fight was bigger than anything the two of had ever had.

It took all of MJ’s willpower not to think about it as she moved around the apartment at night, her feet cold on the wooden floors. Her mom was out for the night, and normally this would be one of the nights spent with Peter. It had started about a week after they began to go out, right after MJ admitted to him that she didn’t really like to be home alone. He started showing up with a movie to watch, with one of May’s recipes to try, with a page filled with a half-completed formula for improved web serum. Whatever it was, the two spent the night doing it, and then ended up falling asleep on the sofa or curled up on the floors with blankets and plates of food. 

But now, the house was empty, and it had been this way since their fight almost a week ago. 

MJ set the kettle on the stove with unnecessary force, trying to block out the thoughts. But, even as she worked to find the tea bag she wanted, she could not keep away the recollection of the argument. 

It started small, with one comment from MJ, reminding him that she did not need to be sheltered from his double-life. His reply had been terse, a reply in which he agreed with her verbally, but his tone suggested otherwise. MJ, being stubbornly observant, had commented on this, and before she knew it they were snapping. Neither one shouted-- it was not their style, although Peter’s voice did rise in pitch when he was upset. And he was upset; they both were. Neither wanted to be fighting. 

But MJ was sick of seeing the boy she cared about so much being buried beneath the burden of his superhero identity, and Peter was sick of her prompting him to allow her into harm’s way. The fight had been inevitable, and MJ did not know if there was a solution. All she knew was that she was falling in love with the slightly shorter boy with the mess of soft curls. 

And now, she thought she might have lost him. 

MJ’s thoughts were interrupted by the shrill scream of the kettle, one that caused her to jump and nearly drop her empty mug. However, the girl in the loose hoodie and the old pajama shorts managed to recover the mug, letting out a sharp breath. MJ brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, one that had escaped from her messy ponytail, and inhaled deeply in order to calm herself. Her nerves were always slightly frazzled when she was left alone at night, and she needed to snap out of it. 

MJ poured her tea, letting the smell of chamomile and vanilla wash over her for a moment as the earthenware of her mug warmed her hands. She was fine, she told herself. She was just tired, and emotionally exhausted. 

But she wasn’t going to go crawling back to him, she told herself. She would wait, wait until he realized what she had realized forever ago-- that he was not going to lose this over some dumb fight. But she did not want to speak to him about it until she was sure he felt the same. 

MJ held the mug close, walking down the hall towards her small bedroom. She made sure to turn off the lights as she approached her room so that she would not have to turn anything else off before bed, except for the bathroom light across the hall. Once she had done all of this, MJ finally clutched her mug in one hand and turned towards her room, slipping inside. Her movements were as quiet as possible so that she had a chance to bask in the silence, let it wash over her and drown out all thought. She just needed to read and go to bed, take the night as a chance to unwind and forget. 

All thought of relaxation was driven from her mind as MJ shut her bedroom door, revealing a figure standing behind it, drenched in scarlet. 

MJ’s whole body clenched, ever muscle pulled as tightly as it would go as shock poured over her like ice water. This time, the mug did slip from between her fingers, tumbling to the ground and shattering. The hot water was painful against her cold feet, causing MJ to leap backwards, away from the silhouette in her shadowy room. She could not seem to scream or cry out, and MJ knew no one would come even if she did. 

But then, her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, and the figure in the darkness became a familiar one. Because beneath the blood, beneath what looked like a second skin of ash and dust, she could see what had once been red and blue fabric, and the eyes that stared at her with an empty, mechanical expression were eyes that had been manufactured by Tony Stark, and they had once been white rather than spattered with crimson droplets. 

“Peter?” MJ found herself saying, her mind not on the pain in her feet or the shards of pottery on the floor. Her mind spun, focusing on the blood... So much blood. She had to try and fix it, fix him. “Peter-- come on, we’ve got to get you sitting down, you’ll bleed out-” 

MJ moved to help him, but then Peter spoke, and her heart broke in her chest. His voice was constricted, hoarse, raw in a way that only came from hours of screaming one’s lungs out. “N-no... No, MJ. It’s not--” His voice cut off completely then, a sound so painful to MJ that she felt a twinge of pain in her chest. “It’s not m-mine.” 

Now that MJ’s eyes were adjusted to the darkness, she could more clearly discern his form in the darkness of her room. He was shaking, trembling like a leaf, and that was it. MJ stepped over the broken mug, ignoring the tenderness of the skin on her feet as she slid beneath his arm. She could feel something warm and sticky sliding onto her skin, soaking into her clothing from his, but she did not seem to care. Instead, she crossed the room and led him to her bed, where she lowered him onto the gray coverlet.

“N...No,” he protested in that same hoarse voice, though it seemed slightly less empty. At least those mechanical eyes were moving to mimic his expression, now, and they looked slightly less hollow. “Your bed-” 

“Parker, I don’t give a damn,” she murmured, though her voice was gentler than normal as she lowered him to the bed. 

Peter finally allowed himself to keep from protesting as she lay his head on her pillow. After a few seconds, she could hear him exhale from inside his mask. MJ began to remove it, freeing his face from the fabric, and her heart only ached more. His eyes were closed, but they were puffy and swollen. There was no color in Peter’s face, and the pallor only made his cracked, scabbed lips look even more painful to her. There was a bruise blossoming along the side of his cheek, and MJ’s fingers flew to this first, caressing it before she could regain control of the actions. 

Even in his state, Peter leaned into the touch, and she watched as those painful lips moved to form a sentence. “You... Were right. You’re always right, I should have told--” 

“No,” she found herself saying, and now MJ’s own chest was tight as she she stood, focusing on the suit that was clinging to his body now. “Stop that. I don’t want to hear it right now. I need you to tell me what’s wrong, so I can fix it.” 

Peter winced as she fumbled to press the button on his chest, causing the suit to balloon around him before she began to work it off. “There’s... Nothing life-threatening,” he whispered as MJ removed the cloth from his skin, revealing a chiseled chest that glistened with red. “Just some bruised ribs, a few second-degree burns, and some cuts. Nothing else. But they--” 

“They? Who is they?” MJ pressed as she finally managed to remove the suuit from his weakened limbs. He was almost fully undressed except for his boxers, but MJ was not thinking anything about that right now. At the moment, she only needed to make sure that he was okay. 

“The people in the... In the building collapse.” 

The words caused MJ to let out a sharp breath, and for a moment, she paused. Her hand moved down to his own, which was covered in grime with filthy and ragged nails, despite the fact that his fingers had been covered by the suit. MJ suspected that something extremely sharp had pierced the suit, and that he had used his own nails to try and dig someone out from the rubble. 

She did not know what to say for a moment as she laced her fingers with his, gripping it tightly. “Parker...”

“I should have told you.” The boy’s dirty face was screwed up in an expression of the deepest pain, and MJ could see tears in his eyes now. “Maybe if you were there, on the headset, or Ned-” 

“You did the best you could,” she interrupted, her voice firm. Still, MJ could not just stand idly by him. She slowly climbed into the bed, and for a moment, she sat beside him with his hand in her own. 

“The best I could do was nothing,” Peter spat, and MJ had never heard such bitter venom in the gentle boy’s tone. “I moved stone, I dug in the rubble, I pulled person after person out of there after putting out the fire-” His voice broke, and his hand trembled violently in her own as she held it tighter. “And they were all gone. I did _nothing.”  
_

MJ felt her heart break with his voice, and for a moment, she just looked at him, at brown eyes that were shattered and hollow as tears slipped free of them. After a moment, MJ lowered herself to the mattress, laying beside him. For a moment, all she could see was surprise in his eyes-- and then, she was pulling him close, and she felt his muscles go limp as he buried his face in the curls that had slipped loose of her ponytail. 

She could feel his body shaking, heaving with sobs. MJ held him close, allowing his arms to snake around her neck and pull her closer. She did not care that his body was clammy with sweat or smelled like ash and singed flesh. All that she cared about was him, about the fact that he was breaking, and MJ would be damned if she let him hurt without anyone else there. 

He was falling apart, and she was going to help hold the pieces together.

She was not sure how long they lay there together, just the two of them in a mess of tangled limbs, embracing as the world fell apart around them and blood soaked from his skin into her clothing. But what she was sure of was that she was not going to let him go, no matter what. This was so much more important than a single fight. 

After a while, Peter finally spoke up, his breath warm against her mess of hair. “I’m still sorry.” 

MJ let out a breath as she held him closer. “I know you are. But you were right, too.” 

She felt him stiffen, and then his neck was craning up to look at her as they lay next to each other. “What do you mean?” he murmured, his voice conflicted. “MJ, this did nothing but prove your point-” 

“And yours,” she murmured, allowing herself to look into those deep, soulful eyes. “Because I don’t have any idea what your world is like, and it wasn’t fair of me to try and push you to let me into it.” 

He was quiet for a moment, and then MJ felt one of his hands find her own in the mess of their embrace. She caught her breath, and suddenly her heart was hammering in her chest.

“But I want you in my world, MJ, and I’m willing to risk it for you. Only you.” 

She could not breathe, and suddenly MJ was all too aware of their proximity to one another. It had not phased her when she was trying to help him, to soothe his pain, but now that he was talking about her... Suddenly his hand sent tingles up her own arm, and she could feel warmth flooding her cheeks. 

“MJ?” When he spoke her name, there was worry in his tone. He began to remove his arms from around her neck, as if he was worried he had inconvenienced her. “I... Look, I can leave, if you need me to. I-I shouldn’t have said anything” 

“No,” she whispered, and MJ found herself only holding him closer. “No... Don’t leave." 

His arms returned to their place around her neck, and MJ let out a sigh of relief as he did so. She felt his arms tighten a fraction of an inch around her neck. “What... Did you miss this?” 

MJ held him close, her mind reeling. He had gone into a building collapse, and they had been fighting about something so, so stupid. One wrong move, one unstable piece of stone, and he could have been buried with all of them... And she would have still been waiting for him to come back so she could hit him with an ‘I told you so.’ She had come so close to losing him. 

So, in order to answer his question, MJ thought for a moment. “What, the hugs?” she asked. “They’re good, yeah. But no... I didn’t miss them. Only you.


End file.
